If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home by Now
by vickrok
Summary: They were both made of real flesh and real bone. She used to think about that a lot. **Written and completed before Season 4.**
1. Chapter 1

**This story was completed before Season 4 began.**

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Chapter 1

The car is hers until 7:00, so she stops at Starbucks on her way through Sheridan. She's not a die-hard or anything. It just feels like a connection to the world out there, and lately she's been pining for the connections.

She sees him before he sees her. At least she's pretty sure it's him.

He's standing out on the sidewalk talking to some guy, and he's got his back to her.

Latte in hand, she slips through the maze of oversized leather chairs and square iron coffee tables, up to the window and into the corner, in case he looks this way. There's a pillar outside to shield her while she figures out whether or not she feels like talking to him, though she already knows she doesn't.

Still, she watches.

Even without the hat and the holster, she knows it's him. She'd know that ass anywhere. He's wearing this oddly tight T-shirt, dark blue with a darker sweat-splotch down the middle of his back. A few months ago, that would have done things to her, but she's past that now.

He wasn't into her.

No one would've asked, but if anyone had, that's what she would've said. You can't get blood from a stone. Or a turnip. Or a dead horse.

She didn't have to try. She knew it couldn't be done.

She wasn't all broken up about it, either. It wasn't like that.

The thing is, they aren't characters in some lame, ten-hour-a-year cable show. Their days are twenty-four hours long, every day of every week, four seasons a year. Sure, there's the backwoods intrigue of the job, and the unresolved sexual tension that may or may not have existed solely in her own pornographic imagination, but there's also laundry and head colds and family and grocery shopping and weight gain and mortality.

The latte is burning her hand through the cup. She considers going back for one of those recycled sleeves, but that would put her out in the open, out where he could see her if he were to turn this way, and concentrate hard, and squint for an extended period through the glare of the afternoon sun on the tinted window. The risk is too high, she decides, so she puts the coffee down on the distressed wood surface of the nearest table and waits it out.

She just wants him to leave so she can leave. She's not dressed for a stakeout beneath a cooling vent.

He turns slightly, puts his hands on his hips, and she holds her breath as though that might render her invisible. She catches a glimpse of the side of his face. It's definitely him, and he's smiling. It's been months since she's seen him smile. Maybe he enjoys life more when she's not around.

She refuses to let that bother her.

They've had hundreds of conversations in the time they've known each other, maybe thousands, and most of them haven't amounted to much. But even the weighty ones flow downstream just like everything else.

It's true: He told her he wanted her to stay, thirty seconds after she realized her husband had publicly served her with divorce papers. In the fictional world, that would still be huge. In reality, she was kind of distracted.

She was angry and she was relieved and she was terrified.

She wasn't really thinking about him or his glassy, unfocused eyes. She was thinking about her 403B and the fact that she didn't own a car. She was wondering how she would pay the mortgage and what she would say to her parents. It wasn't that she didn't know what he meant, though really she didn't. It was that she barely considered it, and even when later she did, it was relatively insignificant in the face of Sean's bitchiness and packed boxes, and the Connally tragedy, and the Nighthorse corruption, and the never-ending Martha saga.

By the time all that went down and blew up, he didn't mean whatever he'd meant anymore anyway.

The other guy comes around the pillar towards the double doors, and it startles her. He's taller and darker and younger and mustached. Hot maybe. She's never sure anymore.

She panics and turns away from the entrance, away from the low, tint-tamed sun.

It's ridiculous really. The younger, taller dude isn't aware of her, and it wouldn't matter if he was. He wouldn't know her from any other half-dressed, neurotic blonde stalker. In her peripheral vision, he walks past the counter and down the dark hall towards the restrooms.

When she looks back out to the sidewalk, Walt's gone.

Aside from the tall guy, it's only her and two teenage baristas and an elderly man reading the _Billings Gazette_. Since no one seems to care, she continues her suspicious behavior. She inches along the window until she can see the other side of the pillar. She has a brief but disquieting cardiac reaction to his absence.

She might never see him smile again.

She grabs her latte from the square table and makes a break for it.

Once outside, she heads directly into the sun, hot on her face for so late in the day. The air smells of heat-softened asphalt and barbecue.

"Vic?" His voice comes from behind her somewhere.

At first she pretends she doesn't hear it, considers speeding up, running even, but then it would look like she's the one with the problem.

So she surrenders, and he's closer than she realized, and now it's him she can smell: sweat and soil and soap.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, and his eyes drop to her breasts, then dart back up to her face.

Stupid air conditioner.

"I have the day off," she says, defensive.

He smiles, and his eyes squint, and there's sunlight in them, and it scares her so she looks away.

"I know," he says. "It was a slow day."

Whatever the hell that's supposed to mean.

She wants to ask him why he's dressed like that, and while she's at it, what's wrong with him in general. She catches herself staring first at his chest and then at the wet patches under his arms, and then at the arms themselves, hairy and damp and powdered with dirt.

When she finally looks back up at his sunburned face, his eyes are on her legs.

"They're called shorts," she says. "It's hot."

"What?" He snaps out of it, reddening maybe. He clears his throat. "Yeah."

He looks at her like he's trying to remember her, and it pisses her off.

"So I gotta go," she says.

But then, of course, the taller, younger guy is back. "Can't leave you alone for five minutes," he says.

Very original.

"Travis," Walt says, nodding towards her. "This is my deputy, Vic Moretti."

His deputy. The deputy that belongs to him.

Travis offers her his hand, so she transfers the latte from her right to her left, and she shakes it.

A loud, drunk group of twenty-something guys in Wranglers and cowboy hats approaches, hogging the sidewalk, and Travis takes the opportunity to move closer to her.

"You're not what I expected," he says, flirting.

She's not feeling it.

Walt takes her arm and pulls her out of the path of the cowboys, towards the planters at the edge, away from Travis.

"I was just helping Travis out with some fence posts," he says, like she asked, which she didn't.

He lets go of her arm.

"Sounds fun," she says, and she smiles, and it probably comes off as about seventy-five percent sincere, give or take.

He keeps his eyes on her now. It might be a challenge, so she doesn't look away, and that's how she knows for certain the wall is down.

"We were about to get a beer," Walt says. "You should join us."

"Gosh," she says, and she knows it's not her, but it's the best she can do. "I'd love to, but I've got this rental, and it's due back in forty-five minutes."

"Road trip?" Travis asks.

"Just for the day."

"Yeah? Where?"

"I'm just kind of doing the tourist thing on my days off."

"She's evading the question, Walt."

"Petroglyphs State Park," she says because it's not a game. She just wants to leave.

"Up near Billings?" Walt asks.

"Yup," she says.

"Where else have you been?" Travis asks.

It's starting to feel like an interrogation.

"Devil's Tower. Mount Rushmore. I've only been at it for a few weeks."

"Smart girl. Getting the sites in while you're here."

Walt tilts his head, like he's straining to hear something that isn't quite loud enough.

"I lived in San Diego for a year," Travis says. "Never went anywhere while I had the chance."

"See there," she says, just to say something. "I don't want to be saying that ten years from now."

Walt insists on walking her to the car, tells Travis he'll meet him down at the bar.

It's a blue four door hatchback, brand new. She unlocks it using the remote, forgetting that if she does that, he'll open the door for her.

"You okay, Vic?"

He holds onto the door frame. She'd forgotten how intense his eyes can be.

"Am I okay?" she says.

He's trying to read her and she wants to tell him to give it up. Those days are over.

"Walt, you realize you see me almost every day, right?"

He gives her a distant half smile. Apparently he didn't.

"Are you okay?" she asks, quieter.

I was worried about you, she thinks, but she doesn't say it. She'd never say it now.

"I am," he says. "Thought I'd take a little time now that things have slowed down."

Things.

"Like a vacation?"

"Well, no. Just . . . ."

He's still trying to figure something out.

She gets into the car, puts the untouched latte in the cup holder and pulls the seatbelt around, clicks it shut. She's not sure she could be any clearer.

"So I'll see you tomorrow," she says.

"Yeah."

Finally, he steps back from the door, and she closes it.

If they had been characters instead of real people, there might have been a brief period of recovery after said _things_ , before they began moving towards each other. But it really wasn't like that.

They're both made of real flesh and real bone.

She used to think about that a lot.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

It's one of those rare humid summer evenings with a smattering of gray rain and flashes of lightning over the Bighorns.

She sees him before he sees her.

Hat on and head down, he crosses the street towards the bookstore, towards her. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, and he's wearing his most worn chambray shirt, which has created a damp seal with his skin in places.

She hears thunder in the distance. It doesn't mean anything.

He strides down the sidewalk, thirty feet from where she's camped out on the frayed yellow velvet couch in the back of the shop with an unobstructed view of Main Street.

"Give me a fucking break," she says too loud.

The owner, who introduced himself six weeks ago as _Mr. Dipaka_ and has said little else since, appears at the end of the literature aisle. She doesn't think she should have to address a forty-year-old man that way, but he's not the kind of guy she wants to get into it with. He adjusts his Seattle Mariners cap lower on his forehead and frowns in her general direction. She wants to tell him to suck it. Instead she waves, but there's no way in hell she's apologizing.

Almost as soon as he steps away, the door jangles open and the street sounds rush in. From where she's seated she can't see the door or who's entering, but she doesn't need to, she knows it's him. In defiance, her body reacts to the idea of proximity. It's been close to a year now since she's gotten any. She could be ready in thirty seconds for just about anyone if it were to come down to it, though it never does, and sometimes she thinks it never will.

She hears his voice, rumbly and cordial. He calls Mr. Dipaka _Sanjay_ , and it hits her: Mr. Dipaka is attractive. He's an Indian Marc Anthony, uncommunicative to the point of rudeness and small, but in incredible, sinewy shape, and he has these warm caramel eyes. _Sanjay_. It's sexy, and he's way better than Travis, who ended up being a total dick. The dick, however, showed interest. Sanjay could give a rat's ass, not to mention he wants her to call him _mister_.

Walt tells him about some book he wants. A first edition. She thinks he says _The Meadow_ , but she's not sure, and she doesn't care. She wants him to wrap it up and be on his way so she can return to the task at hand.

She comes in every Wednesday or sometimes Thursday to barter, and she lingers longer than someone with a life would. Sean "forgot" a box of old paperbacks when he left in a flurry of wasted energy and insults: Dean Koontz, John Grisham, the Da Vinci crap, that kind of thing. So she moved it to her new place with everything else he'd left behind for her to handle. Once a week on one of her early days, she carries five books across the street to the used bookstore in the evening. Dipaka trades her four or five for one, depending on the titles. It works out to about one book a week through September, and that's all she needs. At the end, she'll trade in the new books for three or four even newer ones that she'll take with her as she embarks on the next leg of her life.

The conversation stops.

He might be filling something out, some sort of request for meaningless shit, after which he'll turn around and go, ideally not back exactly where he came from because she'd rather not see him again.

She's got four possibilities picked out, so she starts reading the first few pages of the one about a badass teenage girl in the Ozarks. It's gritty and short, and there's a movie she could get from the library afterwards. The prospect of future activities is always appealing. She moves on to the second one, and for a moment she's off, isolated in her own safe world.

But then the already minimal light coming in from the street is blocked, and she hears the unmistakable creak of his boots.

"Vic?" he says, surprised again, though there are only five hundred thousand people in the State of Wyoming and not that many bookstores. Or coffee shops.

She closes the book, making a point with her deliberate movements, marking the page with her thumb.

"Hey," she says, but she doesn't smile. She doesn't want to encourage him.

The Sheridan sidewalk episode set her back, knocked her down a few rungs. Three weeks ago, she was almost free; now, not so much. On the one hand, she hates him, as in really hates him. On the other, she wants ten more minutes like the ten minutes she had been so determined to escape. She'd settle for five, and that pisses her off no end. Yet here it is, the potential for those minutes, and she wants him to go.

She's all kinds of screwed up in the head.

He's just standing there, observing, taking in the books on the couch next to her and the one in her lap, and her legs in shorts again, she thinks, possibly.

She starts to stand, and he says, "Don't get up."

So she doesn't. He takes off his hat and points with it to the other end of the couch. "May I?"

"No," she says, and he's taken aback, the semi-smile wiped clean off his face, and she's glad, happy even to have some sort of effect, as short-lived as it is. "I'm kidding. Go for it."

When it first became clear that none of it had meant anything, she wanted to hurt him. She actually wanted to inflict pain. Not the kind of pain he'd had so much of, but like a bee sting, or like a weak but emotive slap in the face, something that makes an impression without significantly altering life.

Still sometimes she fantasizes about getting a reaction out of him. She wants to make him flinch, or in her darkest moments, to make him cry. But she's never had that kind of power.

He's got this subdued, almost confused expression on his face as he sits. The couch sags so low that his knees end up quite a bit higher than his hips. There's a sheen of sweat on his neck and chest, and something emanates from him, some sort of fire or radio wave that she fears may disintegrate her.

For him, she could be ready in way less than thirty seconds, and that only brings the humiliation screaming back.

"What are you up to?" he asks, and it's forced, awkward.

He tilts his head to look at the book she's holding, so she pulls her thumb out and turns it over so he can't see the cover.

"Just getting a book."

"Haven't heard of it."

"It's newish," she says. "Some girl with no direction in life works for a quadriplegic a-hole. Ends up falling in love with him. You know, the Hollywood appeal of the broken man."

He takes the book from her and puts it on his lap, synopsis side up, but she knows he's not really reading. He's figuring out where to go from here, whether the hostile environment is even worth it, and she wants to tell him it's not.

But because she can't help herself, she saves him the way she always does: "I'm leaning more towards this," she says, handing him the other one.

He seems relieved. "I've heard of this."

He keeps his head bowed.

"A mystery of sorts," she says. "But with some actual literary merit."

He smiles. "I didn't realize you were interested in literary merit."

She takes the book back from him with a bit more force than she means. "Okay. So I'll see you tomorrow."

Then he does this weird thing. He reaches over as though he's about to take it back, like he's rewinding the scene, but instead of grabbing the book, he covers the hand that's holding the book.

Heat bursts uncomfortably up from somewhere in her core into her chest and her neck. She withdraws her hand and the book, but not quite so hard.

"What have you been reading?" he asks, acting oblivious.

"A lot," she says.

"Like what?"

" _The Shipping News_."

"That's a great novel. Annie Proulx lives in Wyoming."

"Not anymore. I looked it up."

He nods, grins. He knows what she's doing. "I like her work."

"You do? 'Brokeback Mountain'?"

He shrugs.

This is one of the reasons she used to like him so much, and she's a little annoyed that he's reminding her. No Philly cop would ever admit to reading, let alone liking that story, and here he is, a sheriff in rural, conservative Wyoming, and it's no big deal to him.

"Have you seen the movie?" she asks.

"I'm not that open-minded."

She's feeling more relaxed with him, and she thinks that's her cue to leave.

"Have you read Louise Erdrich?" He's roping her back in.

" _Love Medicine_ ," she says, excited. "Loved it."

This has to stop.

She stands up so fast she gets a head rush, and she looks at her wrist even though she doesn't wear a watch and hasn't for probably fifteen years.

"I have to run," she says.

He stands up quickly now, too. She backs up, flustered.

"It was—," he says, then he waits, maybe to confirm that she's listening. "It was nice doing this with you."

"We didn't do anything together." Her delivery is weak and the content cryptic, neither of which she intends.

She takes the book about the girl in the Ozarks up to the counter and leaves the rest on the couch. Usually she cleans up after herself, but these are special circumstances.

Mr. Dipaka conducts the entire transaction without offering one word. It reminds her of the blackjack app on her phone. She knows the odds, yet sometimes her losing streak defies them, defies all logic. Her only choice then becomes to accept that the statistics don't control the game, the game controls the statistics. The tides turn when the tides turn.

He slides one of her five trade-ins and the new book across the counter to her. She's willing him to ask her if she needs a bag, to say something that might make her seem the least bit desirable, but he doesn't.

She stands there, and she can tell by the way he's shuffling stuff around that it's making him uncomfortable, so she stands there even longer.

Finally, she puts the books back on the counter, and says, "Fuck it."

She walks mission-minded straight to the rear of the shop. She expects to find Walt standing, perusing the shelves, but he's seated again on the sunken yellow couch, looking dazed. In one fluid motion so that she doesn't get tripped up by the seams, she puts her right knee on the couch between his legs and her hands on the velvet above his shoulders, and she leans in.

Before closing her eyes she sees his, wide and maybe frightened. She pauses for just a second, her nose skimming his stubbled chin. He doesn't jerk away or pull back or turn his head or anything, so she moves upwards an inch or two. As surprised as he is, his mouth is open, and she doesn't even think about his boundaries, his limits. She's already risking her job and her dignity. She lets her lips and her tongue do what they're inclined to do, doesn't try to slow anything down or rein anything in, and he's right there with her, unbridled, participating more than she would have expected.

When against her own strong will she starts to disengage, she sighs against his lips. He slides his hand up around the back of her neck and pulls her back down, mouth open twice as wide. She gasps and he groans, but it's quiet enough that she's certain it's just between the two of them.

Without meeting his eyes again, she stands up, touches her lips. Then she turns, and she goes.

She grabs her books off the front counter. Mr. Dipaka looks up at her from his adding machine, unfazed.

"Later, Sanjay," she says, and she steps out onto the sidewalk.

There's a light breeze now, and plumper rain drops. As she crosses the street, they splatter on her white T-shirt, and one splashes on her chest, dribbles down between her breasts.

Thunder rolls across the distance.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

She arrives back in Durant starving and sticky with sweat eight hours old. Her KOA Kabin didn't have a bathroom, and the line for the communal showers was way too long.

Walt left for Casper a few hours ago. She called the station to make sure. He'll be gone four days, starting and finishing his continuing education units that were due in May. She would have given him shit about leaving it all until the last minute, but she hasn't seen him for more than half an hour in the past two weeks. Plus there was the whole assaulting his mouth with no warning or explanation whatsoever thing. That's kind of awkward.

She figures it's safe, so she stops at the Red Pony for dinner. By the time she notices him, it's too late.

He's standing this side of the saloon doors, intimidating in his cowboy hat, fingers twitching at his sides, looking right at her.

"Fuck. Seriously?" she says around a monster bite of turkey sandwich.

Henry raises his eyebrows at her.

If she hadn't come so close to needing the defibrillator, she'd laugh. Or drop to the floor to avoid the bullets. But that would be stupid since any impending barroom shoot-out at this point would obviously involve her.

Without greeting either of them, or any of the other ten people he knows, he walks down the hall towards the bathroom.

"What is his problem?" Henry asks, folding a bar towel and dropping it under the counter.

"No clue," she says.

She takes another bite of her sandwich and averts her eyes.

When Walt emerges from the restroom ten minutes later she's down to a quarter of her beer and three fries. He doesn't exactly acknowledge her, and she thinks, yeah, whatever: This is what it feels like. Though truthfully she has a hard time believing she could be the cause of this mood.

He stands at the bar for a while, half facing her, drinking a beer and talking to Henry. She pulls out the book she's reading now—the one about the quadriplegic—just so she has something to do besides try to gauge his level of disgust.

She probably owes him an apology, but what the hell would she say? Sorry about sticking my tongue in your mouth then forgetting to call you back. For two weeks.

In her defense, twice he didn't leave a message, so technically she wasn't not calling him back, and he was at the Sheriffs Convention for five days, and he doesn't have a cell phone, and she's not a mind reader.

The third time he said, "Vic. It's Walt. Call me. Please."

She'll take the blame for that one. But it was only three days ago, and there wasn't much reception in the Tetons.

The conclusion she's drawn is that it was a lapse in judgment rooted in feelings of low self-worth and extreme sexual frustration. Maybe she was trying prove something to him, too, but she can't imagine what the point would be now, out here at the bitter end of it all.

The day after the lapse she was running late. By the time she got in to work, conveniently, he had already left for the convention in Cheyenne. She can see the station from her kitchen window, so he would have every reason to be suspicious of her motives except that she's almost certain he doesn't know she lives there.

She finishes her beer and puts the book back in her bag, and just as she's standing up, he turns to her. All nerves and stickiness, she looks off to the side of his face, over his shoulder, avoiding.

"Hey," he says.

"Hey." She huffs out a breath. It's extraordinarily rude. "I thought you were getting your units."

"Or you wouldn't be here, right?"

His smile is ironic, cutting.

"Basically," she says.

"I'm getting an extension."

"Another one? Aren't there limits?"

He doesn't respond, and she thinks there probably are and he probably already knows.

The thing is, if they were characters in one of those dime-a-dozen procedurals, he would have sought her out, he would have demanded that she talk to him. But they're just regular people, they don't have all the moves. Real life is never like that. And besides, fake people can take more risks because they have so much less to lose.

He's a real man, and he tried. A little. And now he's hurt that she didn't fawn all over him for putting forth half an effort.

But it's not even about that anyway. It's been ten months. Ten whole months. She can't start this now, whatever it is. And she shouldn't have kissed him. She knew that before she did it, but it's done. It can't be undone.

"Where are you coming back from this time?" he asks.

"The Tetons. Snake River."

"Looks like you got some sun."

"Yeah," she says. "Most of it's dirt, but yeah, some sun. Hiking."

He nods. "Can I buy you a beer?"

"I'd like to," she says, and they both know it's a lie, "but I really need a shower."

"You can't just throw me a crumb?" He steps closer, lowers his voice. His eyes are dark, and his lips are chapped. "What did I do to deserve this?"

She doesn't know how to tell him he didn't try hard enough, especially because it seems unreasonable to even think that, and she's not sure it is what she believes. Maybe it's that he tried too late, and that she already knew before she kissed him that she'd do this to him afterwards.

She's not proud of it, but there's so much about the past year that she's not particularly proud of, like the fact that she stayed in the first place, for him.

"Where do I start?" she says.

"What?"

He really doesn't know, and that just makes her feel like the biggest idiot on earth.

"Never mind. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

"Please," he says. "Just one beer."

"Fine."

He gets the beers, and he actually buses a nearby table, wipes it down, too, before he sits, elbows on the surface, forearms stretched out towards her.

"What was that, Vic?"

She's not going to ask him what was what because she knows that's just blatant asshole behavior, but she's also not going to answer anything that isn't a clear and direct question.

"You kissed me," he says. "Out of nowhere."

Henry's at the other end of the bar, and the closest other customers are a few tables away, but still, he doesn't seem as concerned about being overheard as she thinks he should be.

"You're a strong guy. You could've stopped me."

"I didn't want to stop you."

"Well, then, I guess it worked out okay."

"Did it mean . . . ," he starts, but he doesn't follow through.

He couldn't do a better job of making her point for her. Or one of her points.

"No," she says. "It didn't."

"Just give me something to work with here."

His eyes are red-rimmed and constantly moving, and patches of pink are blooming on his cheeks.

"Do you know how long it's been since Sean left?" she asks.

He's baffled by the question. "Six months?"

"Ten months."

She lets that sink in.

"Has the divorce been finalized?" she says.

"No?"

"Yes. Four months ago."

He scratches his head.

"Where do I live?"

"The north development, west of the golf course. The cul-de-sac."

"No. So pardon me for not kissing your ass right now."

He rubs his temple with two fingers. "So you're trying to hurt me."

Her head is humming, and she closes her eyes. When she opens them again, he's looking down at his hands clasped on the table.

"I don't know, Walt. I hope not."

"Because I hurt you."

"Maybe," she says. "I don't know."

She takes another sip of her beer then excuses herself. She's feeling cornered, suffocated. In the restroom, she makes the grave error of looking in the mirror. Her hair is oily and stringy, and she's got salt trails along her jawline and her eyes are red and puffy. She fixes her hair and washes her face and puts on some Chap Stick, but beyond that, there's not a lot she can do.

When she gets back, his fingers are buried in his hair and he's staring down at the table.

"You hugged me," she says.

He picks up his head. They've never discussed this.

"At the hospital?"

"Was there another time?"

"No. At the hospital. Yeah, I did."

A slow smile creeps up at the corner of his mouth. "It was nice," he says.

"But was it appropriate?"

"You were hurting. I was comforting you."

"Is that what it was? Or was it something else, too?"

"Do you think it was appropriate?" he asks.

She drains her beer. "It was nice," she says.

"But was it appropriate?"

"Probably not. Depends what went through your mind at the time."

She remembers his shirt was unbuttoned, and when he pulled her to him, it opened up, and she felt the skin and the strangely soft hair of his chest against the exposed skin above her collar.

"Are you asking me what went through my mind?"

She shakes her head. "No."

"What's your point then?"

"I don't know."

"You keep saying you don't know," he says, "but I think you do."

"Not a lot you can do about that, I guess."

Their eyes are locked. It's this thing that they do: a challenge, or a charge, or a connection, or something. The wall is still down, a month later. She knows he's better now.

"Have dinner with me," he says.

"No, Walt. I can't."

"Why not?"

She's not sure if it's denial, or if it's the fallout from a year of almost total emotional absence, but he really doesn't seem to get it.

"I just can't," she says.


	4. Chapter 4

**Further procrastination . . .**

* * *

Chapter 4

After their talk, she expects him to morph back into Eeyore Walt, but he surprises her.

If he's feeling done wrong and dejected, he doesn't show it. Anyone can pull off normal for a few days, but he's still holding it together a couple of weeks later.

She's about to cross the square on her way home under pink evening sky when she hears him call her name. Her first inclination is always to avoid, to protect herself, but she doesn't want to hurt him. The bee sting has been delivered, and she's done with that. She can only tolerate so much time in his immediate presence, but that's because she can't stop her mind from conjuring the feel of his lips and the smell of his skin and the weight of his hand at the back of her neck.

Even when he's not around she thinks about it too much, but at least then she's not in danger of losing her resolve. She's learned her lesson about sexual tension: It's best to relieve it independently as often as necessary in order to prevent future poor choices.

He jogs over to her from the Bronco, his keys jingling in his pocket. He's got hat hair, damp where the brim was, and the ends are curling up. An extra snap on his shirt is undone, and her eyes get stuck there on the lighter skin of his lower chest, and the virgin tufts of hair peeking out.

"Can I walk you home?" he says.

She has an immediate and distinct physical reaction below the belt.

"Really?"

"I should know where you live. For safety reasons."

"For safety reasons," she says.

She can't get herself to commit one way or the other, but when she starts walking again, he joins her.

"Ruby and Ferg know where I live."

"They do?"

"Yes, Walt. People who work together every day often have this information about each other. They talk sometimes, too."

To be fair, he has been talking to everyone more, and not just about work.

"That makes me look like a jerk, doesn't it?"

"It's not about you," she says, relieved that he's already annoying her.

"How far is it?"

"Why? Are you getting tired?"

"No," he says. She doesn't turn her head to look at him, but out of the corner of her eye she can see he's smiling. "I'm just trying to figure out what I have time to say."

"Just go with the least inflammatory material."

He reaches over and touches the shoulder strap of her bag. "Can I carry this for you?" he says, the backs of his fingers gentle on her shoulder.

"Why?"

"It's cultural programming. Like dogs carrying sticks around."

"That's innate programming."

"That, too."

"Fine," she says.

He puts the bag over his shoulder, and it appears a lot lighter and smaller when he's holding it.

He clears his throat. Oh, God, she thinks.

"So what you were saying. At the Pony. The other day."

"Two weeks ago? Yeah?"

"You were saying you were interested in me. Before, I mean."

She stops in the middle of the square and just stares at him.

"What is wrong with you?" she says.

"What do you mean?"

She sets out across the lawn again because she fears if she doesn't she might punch him. Or start crying.

"Yeah, Walt. That's what I was saying." The sarcasm should speak for itself. Unfortunately, with him, sometimes actual words don't even do that.

He watches her as they walk, and waits.

"I was naïve," she says. "I thought we were interested in each other, but you did everything in your power to prove me wrong."

"You're upset."

He's good with evidence.

"I'll get over it," she says, her voice crackling.

She feels the tears coming, and she wants to get away from him. She's not sure what hurts more: the fact that he doesn't remember the way it was between them before he fell apart again, or the idea that it never really was that way at all.

He's quiet for a while, his keys jingling and her bag thumping against his hip in rhythm.

"Why did you stay?" he asks.

She stops at the edge of the park and reaches for her bag. He slips it off his shoulder and hands it to her.

"I don't know, Walt. I have to go. I'll see you tomorrow."

As she's crossing the street, he calls out, "Is that the place?"

She stops in the middle and nods towards the coin and stamp shop.

"The apartment above. There's a locked entrance on the side."

He squints over at the building, thinking, and she leaves him like that. She doesn't want to know what's on his mind.

There was a point at which she gave up, as any reasonably healthy person would have done months sooner. It had been a bright blue and cold winter morning, but by afternoon, spring had arrived, sunny and warm. For some reason, that day, she finally understood that he wasn't coming back.

You don't reach a place in your life where you're willing to throw everything away for vengeance or for lost love, then snap out of it a month later. A person doesn't make a decision to sacrifice it all in some warped demonstration of honor then come out the other side capable of loving or of being loved.

He was a shell, always working on something with the door closed, something secret. He stopped asking the rest of them for help because they would try to moderate him, to refocus him, to talk to him, and he wouldn't be deterred. He was a mess: scraggly and vacant and scary.

She went home that night and cried like she never cried when Sean left. She gave up on him, and it seems grievously unfair that she feels guilty about it now. What was she supposed to do?

When she gets inside, she looks out at the square. He's already gone.

She changes into boxer shorts and a tank top, and she opens all the windows and a beer.

Barefoot, she steps out onto the rusted metal fire escape landing, which despite obvious safety code violations, triples as her vegetable garden and balcony. If anyone gave a shit, she'd have to stop, but no one does. With a pink metal watering can she found at a garage sale a few weeks back, she waters her two tomato plants, and the green onions, and the basil.

She's just turned on the shower when she hears a voice and turns it off. At first she thinks there's some sort of police action out on the street, but then she distinctly hears her name, multiple times, and she realizes it's him, barking, the way he used to get her attention at work. There's nothing happening out front beyond the regular end-of-day milling around, so she climbs out onto the landing again. The sun is setting now over the bank, and the alley is dusky with a purple tinge.

"Vic!" he shouts again, but she can't see him.

"What the fuck?" she whisper-yells, leaning over the low rail. "Where are you?"

"Where are you?" he says, and then she sees him, close to the building maybe twenty yards down, facing Second Street.

"I'm right here."

He turns around and looks up, then starts walking towards her.

"Is it safe to stand on there?" he says, as if it's her behavior that raises concern.

"Provided I don't fall off." She tries to keep her voice down since she's sure Mrs. Wong is staking out the back door of the Wok and Roll right about now trying to figure out what's going on. "What are you doing?"

"I needed to talk to you."

"That's what phones are for."

"Well that hasn't worked out too well for me in the past, has it?"

She doesn't know where the attitude is coming from, if maybe he found out she went out with Travis, which she didn't even really do. Or maybe he's rethought the whole ambush kiss incident and he's no longer cool with it.

He stops almost directly under her. Her shorts have wide legs, and she's not wearing any underwear or a bra, so she crouches and peers down at him through the grates.

He puts his hand on his hip and bows his head, shakes it then looks back up.

"They're tearing this place down in October," he says. "I knew I'd read something about it."

"Huh."

She's not prepared for this. She'd forgotten it was something for which she even needed to be prepared.

"You didn't know?" he says.

He's irritated as though it's information she would be expected to disclose to him as her employer. Or as her friend.

"I knew," she says. "I got a good deal on the rent because of it."

"So what does that mean?" There's a tremor in his voice.

"In terms of what?"

She knows what he's asking but she hasn't thought it through, hasn't decided how she wants to handle it.

"Does it mean you're leaving?"

"Walt. Come on."

"Can you just answer question? Can you at least do that?"

She considers calling him out on the "at least" bullshit, but she's getting a cramp in her hamstring and has to stand up, and by that time she wants to let him feel what he feels without starting a fight.

"Yes," she says.

"Yes what?"

"Yes. I'm leaving."

"When were you planning to tell me?"

"I was planning on giving plenty of notice."

"That's not what I mean."

"I've used twenty five vacation days in the past three months. I figured you knew."

That might not be entirely true. She hasn't thought much about what he knows and doesn't know. He's been out of the loop, voluntarily, and they've all gotten used to it.

A window nearby slams shut.

She leans over the railing again and says as quietly as she can, "Why don't you come up. I'll let you in at the side."

"No," he says, but he doesn't sound angry anymore.

"I have beer. And tomatoes."

"No. Thanks. I have to go."

But he doesn't go. He just stands there, a dark, motionless form at the bottom of the fire escape.

"Walt?

"Yeah."

"You weren't here. For so long."

He coughs.

"I know," he says, much quieter. "I'm sorry about that."

She stays out on the landing, in the dark, until the sound of his boots fades into the night.


	5. Chapter 5

**And again . . .**

 **(There won't be one tomorrow because this is getting ridiculous. But thank you again for all your awesome feedback and for being hungry for more.)**

* * *

Chapter 5

It's the fifth day in a row with a forecast into the nineties.

At 6:30 her little apartment is already hot, and needless to say, slated for demolition as it is, there's no air conditioner.

She's at the kitchen sink filling the coffee carafe when she spots him across the park loading what looks like pieces of wood into the back of the Bronco.

Half an hour later, after she's watered her plants, and harvested some tomatoes and onions, and taken a shower, he's still there, now loading cardboard boxes. She tries to talk herself out of it, but she's not very convincing.

At the other side of the square before crossing the street to the station, she hesitates. He's still not aware of her.

He's wearing a white T-shirt, not as tight as the strange blue one, with a print of a lasso on the back and the name of some tack and feed store. As he moves boxes, his shirt rides up, exposing his back above his jeans.

Panicking, she changes her mind, bails out, but she's too slow.

"Vic?" He sounds surprised.

Fuck.

When she faces him, he's smiling, his hair shaggy and in his eyes.

"Hey," she says.

He's breathing hard. His eyes skim her body before he seems to catch himself, then he straightens up, more alert, embarrassed.

"What are you doing?" she says.

He pulls his gloves off and wipes his forehead with his hand.

"I'm, uh," he starts, but he seems unsure, self-conscious. "I'm cleaning out the storage room."

"Why?"

"Just trying to get organized. Been neglecting things. What are you doing?"

"Taking a walk before it gets too hot."

She feels exposed.

Sweat drips from his hairline into his eyes and down his nose. He lifts the bottom of his shirt and wipes his face, apologizing. It puts her over the edge.

"Okay," she says, already walking away. "I'm off today. See you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow," he says, and she can tell by his tone that he thinks she's having some sort of breakdown.

Since that night, they haven't talked about it, at least not directly. He was unusually busy in the following days, but not in the creepy, cagey way he had been. When they did see each other, he was still there, still himself if maybe a bit quieter. The wall wasn't back up as she'd feared, and maybe hoped it would be.

Within the week he was over it, whatever it was, and he was there again, relatively normal. He even called her into his office one night before she left and gave her a draft of a letter of recommendation, told her to read it, said he'd add anything she wanted.

She made it half way across the park before the grief bore down on her.

It's about an hour later, not even 8:00 yet when she hears him calling her name.

She runs to the window and scrambles out onto the landing. He's standing at the bottom of the fire escape looking up.

"Use the phone," she whispers, though there's something about this that makes her feel like she's floating. "I promise I'll return your calls."

He squints, shades his eyes with his hand.

"You left kind of fast."

"I had to get back," she says.

He nods, surveys his surroundings like he's about to say something personal or of great import, but nothing comes.

"You want a cup of coffee?" she says.

It's unwise. She knows.

"That'd be great."

"Go around to the side."

He reaches for the ladder.

"Or you could come up that way. I guess."

He pulls it screeching down. She leans over the railing, and says as firmly as possible without increasing her volume, "People are sleeping."

"Sorry," he says. "Don't lean over that. It's too low."

She's formulating a snippy retort when he stretches up to the highest rung he can reach, again with the skin and the muscle and the hair, and he pulls himself up.

"Holy shit."

She's not sure how much more of this she can take.

"What?" he says now standing on the lowest rung and gripping the sides.

"Nothing."

He climbs up, his triceps flexing, and pushes himself up through the opening in the landing that wasn't cut with someone his size in mind.

It has always amazed her what he's able to do with his body. But it's best not to think about that.

"You have a garden," he says, stepping over to the containers. With him standing next to it, the railing does seem too low. "I've heard about people doing this in big cities."

"Want some tomatoes?"

He smiles like he almost never used to. "Thanks."

"You should do that more often."

"What?"

"Smile."

He kneels down next to the green onions and with his index finger sifts the dirt next to one of the bulbs.

"I should remember what I have to smile about," he says.

She brings a cup of coffee out for each of them. They sit on the edge of the platform, legs dangling over the alley.

"What's today's adventure?"

"None," she says. "I'm staying home. I might go swimming."

It's not necessary to mention that she's working on her resume.

"Not at the public pool."

"Why? You have horror stories about pee and flesh-eating bacteria?"

"Not too far off," he says.

He takes a sip of his coffee, seems to be watching something off in the distance, beyond the bank and the gas station.

"I know a place," he says.

Already she's afraid of what he means.

"A swimming hole. No one's ever there."

True to form, he pauses there, takes a sip of his coffee, scratches his head, shakes the railing, to test its integrity she guesses.

Then he says, "We could go."

Words and ideas and emotions, all of which deal with fear and desire and sadness swirl around in her, but nothing coherent forms. She's stuck.

"It's down to what now, Vic? Four weeks?"

She nods. "Yup."

She's waiting for him to lay one of his help-me-out-here, it's-the-least-you-can do trips on her, but he doesn't. He just smiles, and maybe his lower lip quivers, and he looks away.

"What about the station?" she asks, hoping to derail him.

"The State Police patrols. I told Ferg to call your cell if anything comes up."

"So you thought I'd say yes."

"Why not?"

"You mean besides the naked part."

"My shorts keep everything covered."

"Shorts as in underwear?"

She might be in the midst of learning yet another valuable lesson.

"That's the only way to properly enter a swimming hole. Aside from the other way."

"What's going on with you, Walt?"

He's serious all of a sudden. "I just want to spend some time with you."

She bites her lip, removes a dead leaf from the basil.

"Okay," she says.

He picks her up after lunch.

A few miles out of town he turns onto a dirt road, and they're on that for another five miles or so before he pulls onto the grassy shoulder. The creek isn't far from there, but they walk along it maybe half a mile through hot, still air before they reach the swimming hole itself.

It's bigger than she expected, clear blue around the edges and dark green in the middle, and it's surrounded by flat rocks and some tall trees with branches hanging over the water.

Her stomach is in knots as they drop their towels and drinks in a shady spot on the bank.

She doesn't look at him at all until they're in the water, not even when he's taking his boots off, and definitely not when he gets to his shirt and his pants. He gives her the same courtesy. She's wearing a jog bra and clashing boyshort underwear, both chosen for their coverage and for their lack of sexiness.

They don't say much, just orbit each other, keeping their distance, and she floats on her back for a while, gazing up at the blue sky.

When the shivering starts, she climbs out onto a flat, mossy rock, and when she turns around, he's at the edge of the pool looking up at her.

"What?" she says, wiping her nose.

"Nothing."

"Are you getting out?"

"Yeah," he says. "In a minute."

She lies down on the rock in the sun, and when he gets out, he lies down next to her. He drapes his arm over his eyes, and his breathing evens out, becomes deep. She thinks he's fallen asleep when he says, "You shouldn't go on those trips alone."

"Who says I've been going alone?"

"You haven't been?"

He puts his arm down, shades his eyes with his hand.

"Not all the time. I did a Meetup thing in the Tetons."

"What's that?"

"It's a website where you can join an already planned activity. You just show up at the place and time. That was a multi-day one."

"Is that safe?"

"It's a hiking group, not BDSM."

"What about your, uh . . . the people you know in Durant?"

She sits up, turns on her side, and props her head on her hand. It's the first time she's actually looked at him in this state of undress. He's wearing red checkered boxers.

Red.

"You think I don't have any friends."

"That's not what I meant," he says, looking at her out of the corner of his eye.

"Well, I don't." She turns onto her back again. "But that's not because I haven't tried. When you're thirty-four, don't have a baby, and aren't a tweeker, it's not so easy."

She watches a wisp of cloud float across the sky.

"I did play slosh ball with that rowdy group you kicked out of the park."

"Beer and bats don't mix," he says.

"It was chaos at the end. I made out with the manager of the Enterprise Rent-a-Car in Sheridan."

Now he turns on his side, and she feels his eyes on her for uncomfortable moments before he speaks.

"Why would you tell me that?"

"What?"

"That you made out with someone."

She rolls to her side again, so they're face to face, closer than she intended. She tries to make eye contact so she won't look at his lips, but he's busy checking her out, and when he notices he's been caught, he doesn't look embarrassed at all.

"It's an echo. It's left over from when I just wanted to get a reaction out of you."

"You wanted to make me jealous."

"Maybe."

"I am jealous, Vic. I'm jealous of everyone that gets to talk to you and spend time with you and touch you when I don't."

His hand moves towards her, and she thinks he's going to, but he stops, leaves it on the warm rock between them.

"I went out with Travis."

"I know."

"I wanted you to care."

"I did."

"I broke his finger."

"I know."

She's not sure if she should be hurt by this. Or angry. Or offended.

"I can't believe he told you that," she says.

"He didn't. Henry did."

"What the hell? He said he wouldn't."

"He had to, Vic."

She rolls onto her back again, and the rock is scorching now against her dry skin, but she can't look at him.

"It wasn't just ass grabbing, okay? I wouldn't break a finger over that."

"I know you wouldn't."

"It was way worse."

"He's always been a prick like that," he says.

"Then why are you friends with him?"

"I don't think I am anymore."

They go back in the water, again without saying much, again keeping their distance, but when they get out and lie down on the rock in the sun, their shoulders are almost touching.

"I stayed for you," she says.

"I'm an idiot."

"It's like blackjack."

"Been gambling?"

"Not with real money. Same idea, though. It's like you have a thousand dollars, and that's what you're playing with, and you hit this horrible losing streak, lose almost all of it. But then on that last twenty bucks, things start really turning around, but to stay in the game, you'll have to put more money in, and a thousand bucks was already way out of your league."

He crosses his wrist over hers and takes her hand, interlacing their fingers.

"You'd be putting in a lot more than I've had to," he says.

"I just don't know how much I have left to lose."

"That's why you can't have dinner with me."

"Or go swimming with you."

"Right."

Even when their bodies have dried and the late afternoon breeze is rustling the tops of the trees, he's still holding her hand, and this time she doesn't let go.


	6. Chapter 6

**Just one more after this. Thanks for all the welcome encouragement to continue my procrastination streak. : )**

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Chapter 6

He told her he wouldn't be at the Labor Day picnic.

After the swimming hole, he'd had ideas, wanted to make plans, but it was complicated and painful and everything was closing in on her now. He seemed to understand. He gave her space.

They agreed it was for the best.

The problem with the real world is that pivotal life decisions require planning, and money, and discipline, and the involvement of other people who have their own expectations and make their own sacrifices. Changing course is a little more complicated than just not getting on the bus, or being chased down at the airport with seconds to spare and a declaration of love. Like that matters once one-way tickets have been purchased and homes have been relinquished and family has been told.

Besides, moving sucks.

Everything she had moved out of the house when it sold that wouldn't fit in the tiny apartment ended up in a storage facility at the edge of town. It would have been easier to donate it all, but it was part of the settlement and she hadn't ended up with a lot. Now something had to be done with it, and time was running short.

She was scattered and nervous and maybe a bit withdrawn because how do you deal in those final days with the places and the people that have been in your life for over three years that you fully expect to never see again?

She shows up late to the picnic, and she drinks too much because every time she notices, again, that the parking space usually occupied by the Sheriff's Bronco is vacant, she dies a little. It's an opportunity to kill multiple birds, though, to close out some social accounts, so she does her best to chat with acquaintances who'll be over her impending departure by morning, and others, like Ferg and Omar and even Cady, who might need longer, but not much.

Mostly, though, she counts down the minutes until she can sneak away, back to her sanctuary that less than a month from now will be rubble and dust.

She's startled by the sight of him standing next to the bandstand, dressed as though he gave it some thought. Her insides sparkle, and she loses track of the conversation with Edna the librarian and Charlie a new mail carrier she's never met before.

He tilts his head and tries to smile, a sincere effort, and she knows what he means.

Daylight has begun to fade. Across the lawn and beyond the good citizens of Durant, glowing now under the white party lights strung from pole to pole crisscrossing the park, there it is, the Bronco in front of the station.

It's a pull that takes her to him more than any conscious effort of her own. This is the way it is with them.

The cool breeze smells of fall mixed with his aftershave and the light, wheat-field scent that's uniquely him. It's only when she begins to thaw that she realizes how frozen she's been.

"I thought you were avoiding me," she says, playing, not thinking.

She knows better than to make light of something so heavy.

"No," he says, perplexed, as though he doesn't know where anything like that could have come from, even as a joke or a quip or whatever it was.

She's buzzed, slower than usual at reading him, but she focuses now. He hasn't been drinking. She can tell. He's all straight lines and control but with a perceptible weight on him.

His brow twitches, and his eyes are shallower. She wonders about that wall, if he's reconstructing it. She can't tell in this light, with this blurriness in her head, and she'd rather not think about it anyway.

He steps forward, links his pinky into hers at her side, lightly, but secure.

"I'd like to take you out," he says. "Thursday."

The idea itself is pleasant, always exciting, and the way he's touching her is downright romantic, but there's a defiance behind it, a challenge. There's anger, and she's thrown.

"We've discussed this," she says, careful with her tone and her word choice. "It'll make everything harder."

The unstructured, untamed part of her wants it so badly.

They never even hugged again. It's still just the one time, over a year ago. And they've never kissed properly. That same part of her wants him to know how much she's always yearned for that, and how much harder it gets each day to care about what happens next. She wants to smell his hair and agree not to stand so close to the railing, and she wants another chance to return his phone calls because she's learned a lot about herself and about love, and she could do better now if it wasn't so late.

But when they left the creek that day, when he let go of her hand, and they stood up and got dressed, there was something unspoken. There was an agreement that that would be the last of it.

"Just the once," he says, and she's seen this before, the way his breathing quickens and his eyes become fixed and the armor becomes almost visible. "An evening out. Something nice."

He adds a twitchy smile. He thinks she can't see it, feel how it's anything but nice.

"What's going on? Why are you mad?"

She feels betrayed, hurt, but it's important not to show it, not to get wrapped up in the idea that he's changing the rules.

"You can't just do that for me?" he says, his voice an airy growl.

"Don't do this, Walt. Just tell me what's wrong."

She gets it now: He was angry before he got here, and she should help him with it because she loves him and she doesn't want him to suffer, but she can't shake the thought that he's doing her a favor, he's doing them both a favor by pissing her off, making her feel disgusted and trapped, and that's before he adds, moving closer, teeth shut tight, "You can't just give me this one thing?"

"Oh my God," she says, and she almost says, You're such an asshole, but she doesn't because she doesn't ever want to say something like that to him again, no matter what happens, no matter how much she hates him.

He takes a breath, turns to look at the row of ailing buildings that includes hers, and she's not in such a beer-haze that she can't hear the hitch and the waver, and she thinks he should be hiding this. That's what they were doing for each other. They were keeping the grief and the disenchantment contained.

"What have I asked of you, Vic?" he says, and he swallows, eyes still across the street.

"Are you joking?"

He turns fast, and he's close, but he seems galaxies away.

At some point he let go of her finger, but she doesn't remember when, and that bothers her more than anything.

"We're doing all of this the way you want to do it," he says, livid, but keeping it corralled, aware at least of the humming of conversation around them, of the circulating, muttering crowd. "What about what I want?"

"You did not just say that."

He's glaring at her. It's scary and she looks down at the grass. She reminds herself that he does this. This is how he says he's reached the breaking point. It's been a long time since she's seen him this affected, and back then, she was around him enough to witness the build-up. He built up to this on his own out there somewhere.

"I didn't ask you to stay," he says. "You're punishing me for that."

She raises her hands. She's not even sure why, to pull out her hair or to rage at the heavens or what.

"Yes, Walt," she says, and it's getting up there towards a yell, and Ferg's standing on the other side of the bandstand talking to some girl, and his eyes flick over to them. She clenches her teeth and drops her arms and the volume. "You did. But I'm not punishing you. I'm living my life."

He shifts his weight and alternates the hand and the hip, and he seems more conscious of the people around him, shrinks a little.

"Well, I'm sorry I keep getting in the way of that," he says, and he starts walking away.

She grabs his wrist, hard. He looks down at her hand, and she loosens her grip, afraid she's hurting him.

"I'll fuck you," she whispers, close to his chest, head tilted up, staring at him. "Once. You leave before morning. That's all I'm offering."

It's calculated: the invalidating, the cheapening, the repelling, the hiding. He has built-in constraints, codes, belief-sets. She knows where his edge is and she knows what will push him over.

She's braced for his self-righteous, Is that what this is to you? You think that's what I want? but she's always been arrogant in her assumptions. The self-righteousness she expects is nowhere to be found. He just looks tired, and off somewhere far away in his mind.

He seems to slacken and to yield.

He closes his eyes for a second, purses his lips and quietly says, "I guess I'll see you around then, Vic."

She watches him cross the park and then the street, nodding to a few people, not stopping to talk. Then she watches him get in the truck, and she watches him drive away.

And she figures that might just be the end of it.

She wants to get drunk. Needs to get drunk.

She stays longer than she'd planned, talks to people that don't matter, tries not to look at the empty parking spot, and she drinks. But there's so much adrenaline pumping through her that it's burning off the alcohol, and she's not getting anywhere.

The longer she's there, the guiltier she feels. She could find him, drive to his house and apologize, but she can't drive now, and as much as it claws at her heart, she knows this could be the solution. This could be the out for both of them. Her surfacing as something he can't tolerate, can't even understand will help him move past it, and if she knows he's moving past it, in time, she'll move past it, too. If she leaves it alone, lets the damage settle in, lets him believe that's who she is, they'll both be free.

She leaves without saying goodbye to anyone.

The walkway between the buildings is dark, lit only by the alley lights in back, but she sees him right away. Even without the silhouette of the hat, she knows the shadow leaning against the brick wall, head bowed, is him.

It seems to take forever to walk that twenty feet from the sidewalk to the door.

"I'm sorry, Walt."

"Okay," he says. The anger is gone.

"That's it?"

"No. I mean okay."

His eyes are sad, but deep, maybe deeper than she's ever seen them. The wall is still down. He's still better.

He sits on the corner of the bed because there's nowhere else to sit. She's in the bathroom for too long, thinks he might leave, but that's not why she can't come out. She changes into boxers and a tank top, stares at herself in the mirror, strains to make her mind work properly.

When she comes out, she turns on the small lamp by the bed and then she stands in front of him and says, "I shouldn't have said that. It was mean. It's not how I feel."

"I know," he says.

"Obviously, we don't have to do . . . I mean . . . ."

"I want to. Unless you want me to go, I want to."

She feels like a drug dealer, a bad influence.

"Walt. I don't think . . . ."

He takes her hand, pulls her towards him.

The second time they ever hug, she's on his lap, breathing in rhythm with him, his arms firm around her back and so long that his hands are on her stomach. She buries her face in the warm hollow between his neck and shoulder. He smells like leather and rain.

They lie down, facing each other. There's nothing to say, and way too much, and she's amazed what she can understand just from looking in his eyes.

Later, after they might have slept some, he slides his hand over her hip, then under her tank top. She unsnaps his shirt, unbuckles his belt, he eases her shirt over her head.

It's nothing she even knew existed.

It's not frantic and sweaty and sprinkled with breathless admissions of want and need. They join slowly, moving almost not at all. It feels like home.

She bites her lip and the inside of her cheek, trying not to swallow or whimper or sniffle in any way that might let him know what's happening to her. But then she touches his face, and it's wet, and she realizes he already does.

She knows it can't go on indefinitely, but there's irrational hope that if they're careful, if they pay close enough attention, then maybe.

They get a long way, further than she's ever been before, but then his body jerks, and he moves a bit more, a bit harder, and he groans and says, choked, "Vic. I'm sorry."

"Okay, okay. That's fine. Me, too."

Afterwards, they kiss for the second time ever, and they're both ready for it, and they both know exactly what it means.

She promises herself she won't fall asleep. A few times she slips, but she catches herself, and when she does, she runs her fingers through the hair on the arm holding her tight against his chest.

But she's only human, and she can't hold on forever. When she wakes up to daylight, he's gone.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:**

 **This is a note I probably should have put on my first post a year ago. Everything I write is based on the TV show _Longmire_. I didn't love the books (though I did love the sex scene in the third one), and I don't consider them in terms of character development, setting, or backstory. I stopped reading them after the first and skimmed the second and third.**

 **The only exceptions, I think, are that I included at some point Ruby's Post-its, and I switched back and forth between _Lucian_ and _Lucien_ (unintentionally, but I never fixed it). So . . . details about Vic's family and/or her home in Philly are purely figments of my own imagination. I know she has brothers in the books, but in the show, to me, she seems like a girl who grew up surrounded by boys, so I went with that, too.**

 **And now our final chapter . . .**

* * *

Chapter 7

It's yet another lesson: Moving forward after having your heart ripped from your chest and shattered into billions of microscopic pieces is challenging. For example, it's hard to give a shit about anything.

Sometimes she blames him, seethes in the idea that it was all avoidable. If only he'd stayed gone for a couple of months longer, she'd be doing all right. She'd already have gone down this part of the road, and it was in much better condition back then.

Mostly, though, it's just a constant vague ache, a slow process of warping and decaying and splitting and rotting and fading, like the wood on an old barn.

For the first time in her life, her family treats her like she's fragile. Sometimes she thinks they know, but she doesn't understand how that could be. When her younger brother visits, he doesn't punch her in the arm; her older brothers talk to her like she has cancer.

Total lack of motivation aside, she has no intention of being a mooch or of living with her parents forever. Soon after she arrived, she wrote her dad a check for rent. The next morning, it had been returned to her, slipped under her bedroom door. When she tried to reassure her mom that she'd find work soon, her mom said she wasn't worried, told her to take her time.

As loving as her family has always been, _low-pressure_ and _empathetic_ were not terms that previously would have been used to describe them. It freaks her out a little.

One morning after breakfast she's sitting with her mom at the kitchen table, finally sharing the pictures of her post-divorce adventures: Devil's Tower, Mount Rushmore, the petroglyphs, the Grand Tetons, her apartment. Her mom asks questions, acts interested, gushes over beautiful scenery. She's a good mom that way.

After the last picture, the Snake River, Vic swipes once more out of habit, and there he is.

It's a shock that seems to deliver actual electricity. She'd forgotten about it.

When they got back to the truck that day out at the creek, he opened the door for her. He was waiting while she got settled, acting like she was taking forever, teasing her. So she dragged it out by searching for her phone then taking a picture. His hair was all fluffy, and his skin had that post-sun glow.

Behind him is blue sky, paling towards evening, and it brings out the blue in his eyes. He's smiling the wide smile she'd only ever seen in the last two months.

"Is that him?" her mom says, being coy, smoothing down her already pressed skirt.

"Him who?"

She reminds herself to remain calm: There is absolutely no way her mother could know anything.

"The, um, . . . ."

"The Sheriff, Mom."

"Oh," she says, and she's clearly surprised. "The Sheriff. That's not what I expected him to look like."

"He doesn't really look like that."

With the T-shirt and the messy hair, he's got this aging surfer vibe going on, and he looks super mellow. And happy, she thinks. He looks happy.

"He's handsome," her mom says.

"You think?" She plays it off, scrutinizing the picture. "Huh. I guess maybe he is."

There's something uncomfortable, though, something that makes her feel swathed. It occurs to her that maybe the picture seems intimate. Maybe this isn't a picture an employee would have of her boss.

"What, Mom?" she says, closing the photo app.

Something's ratting her out in that picture or on her face, and she's not sure she wants to know what it is.

"Nothing, honey. Looks like you were doing well for yourself."

She wonders what the hell that's supposed to mean, but she keeps quiet. It's not her mom's fault they were so inept.

Upstairs, lying on the twin bed in her old bedroom, she brings up the picture again. She used to look at him and wonder what it would be like to kiss him, or to feel his hands on her, or to have him inside her, and she used to think that's all it would ever be: wondering. That, at the time, had been painful, but it was nothing compared to this. She couldn't have imagined how much worse knowing would be.

On a different day that she also doesn't send out resumes or research law enforcement agencies, she's enduring _Two and a Half Men_ with her dad when she gets the fourth in a string of calls from a number she doesn't recognize in the 307 area code. There's no one in Wyoming she wants to talk to, and if there were, there are two phone numbers associated with him, and that's not one of them. After the second call, she did a search on the number, but nothing came up. She considers the Enterprise guy, or God forbid, Travis, but whoever it is, it should be of low concern. She never answers her phone anyway, and it's hard to stalk someone from 1,900 miles away.

A week later, early in the morning when she's in the family room reading, warming up to job-search related activities, she gets a text from the same number that says, _I think about you all the time_.

Though in theory this is just as harmless, it's somehow more frightening. It brings back the Gorski episodes, the feeling of helplessness.

She doesn't respond.

A second one, ten minutes later says, _Oh, and_ _your tomatoes are delicious_.

"What the fuck?"

"Victoria," her mom calls from the kitchen.

"Sorry, Mom."

She runs up the stairs.

Engaging is the worst thing a victim can do, but she's curious. Whoever it is writes full words, so either they have a good phone with autocorrect or they're meticulous or they're not used to texting, or some combination of the three.

She shoehorns herself into a better headspace before she replies.

 _Who is this?_

There's no response.

Over the next half hour, she checks obsessively. She plays blackjack to get her mind off it, but it doesn't work, and as a result, she loses three hundred dollars in fifteen minutes and has to borrow from "the bank."

Then another one comes, and it's a picture. It takes some time to make sense of what she's looking at. They're potted plants, and two of them look like her tomatoes, but that idea is too square to fit into her round mind until she notices the pattern on one of the pots, a native design. It's the pot she found in the alley by the dumpster.

Those are her two tomato plants and the other two pots are the onions and basil, though from this vantage point, they don't appear to be holding up so well. The plants are on some sort of wood platform, definitely not the fire escape where she left them, and which by now, no longer even exists.

A wave of nausea rolls through her. Fear seems irrational, but it doesn't care.

She doesn't respond, but she keeps the phone close. There's nothing for a while, and she has time to calm down only to get pumped right back up when the next one comes in. It's another picture.

She opens it, and right away, she knows what it is. It's a picture of Walt's cabin from a distance, probably in the field, and to the left of the front steps, she can see the four pots.

And this is how mangled her perception is: She thinks the stalker is holding him hostage.

They've done something to him to get to her, and for seconds, maybe even a full minute, she's frantic, and she's hyperventilating, and she's never felt so powerless.

But then it hits her. She's a fucking moron. Her face flushes, and she has an immediate, appropriate, totally different physical reaction.

She almost heads for the bathroom to make sure she looks okay, further evidence of how undone she's come.

Her hands are shaking when she responds.

 _Walt?_

Seven excruciating minutes pass.

 _Yes._

 _This is Walt?_

 _Yes._

 _Longmire?_

 _Yes._

Ten minutes pass while she's trying to untangle her thoughts, trying to get her respiration under control.

Her mom calls through the door, "Are you okay, honey?"

"I'm fine, Mom. Thanks."

She types again.

 _Whose phone?_

There's a short delay, a couple of minutes.

 _Mine._

 _You bought a phone?_

 _Yes._

 _How did you get the garden?_

Eight minutes pass, and she realizes she needs time to think, to settle her head. She gets dressed and goes out for a run, and she's gone for forty-five minutes. When she gets back, there are two texts:

 _Fire escape_ , and fifteen minutes later, _Vic?_

She's dripping sweat on her phone.

 _You climbed down fire escape with pots?_

 _Yes. One at a time._

 _Nearing end of season._

There's no response for a few minutes, so she takes a shower. When she's finished, there's one.

 _I'll keep them alive._

 _There's a natural order to things._

 _I can do it._

She turns on her laptop and opens the resume file and tries to convince herself she's working on it.

When that grows tiresome, she texts him again.

 _I miss you so fucking much._

She makes a list in a file she entitled "Job Search" of all the police departments in the general area. She's got twelve when another text comes in.

 _I miss you too. You have no idea,_ and right afterwards another one: _You probably do._

That's how it starts, and it continues, every day, something.

The first time they talk on the phone, ten days later, late on a Friday night, she cries.

He says, "Don't cry, Vic. This is good," but he sounds kind of watery himself.

By the end of October, everyone has stopped waiting for her to break. Her mom pretends not to notice all the texting, and her dad really doesn't notice.

She sends out her resume with well-written and professional cover letters. She gets interviews, goes to them, does well, gets callbacks, does mostly well, and gets three job offers. But she holds out. She wants it to be a good fit.

On a cold, hazy morning in November, she's out front stretching after her run.

When she stands up to go inside, she has an odd mental moment. She thinks she sees him, standing on the other side of the street. The guy is leaning against a green Jeep Liberty, no hat, no holster, no Sheriff's coat, just an extra-tall but regular looking dude in jeans and a leather jacket.

It's karma, she thinks, for all those times she saw him and wanted to hide.

But then he waves, and it isn't funny. She could be having a stroke, or a psychotic break.

There's something about the way he gestures to her to come over to him, though, something so familiar. It's some form of communication between them from way back that she never thought about, but that she filed away for future reference. Or future verification.

"Walt?"

Her legs feel boneless as she walks towards him. They meet in the middle of the street. It's really him.

It's the best hug of her entire life, and that's saying a lot at this point. She stands on her toes and kisses him, and he's all clean shaven and warm and his lips are soft, and he smells like Wyoming. An orange Prius honks at them, and they move out of the road. It would be easy to get run over by a Prius.

She's a little misty in the front yard when she says, "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see you," he says, as though it's normal and rational.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because if you said no and I did it anyway, we wouldn't be getting off to a very good start."

He caresses her cheek with his thumb.

"Start?"

He shrugs. "I hope so, Vic."

She kisses him again because she can, and he's a willing and informed participant.

Her body is all aflutter, and she whispers in his ear, "We should go somewhere."

It reminds her of her crude proposition in the square that night, but it's not like that. It's the opposite of that really.

"I have a room."

"Oh, God," she says. "Please say that to me again later."

Out of the corner of her eye, she detects movement in the kitchen window and pulls back from him, creates some distance.

"How long are you here for?"

"As long as it takes."

The panic starts to build, but at the same time, there's the presence of hope that seems to balance it out.

"What about work?"

"I'm on vacation."

She takes him inside to meet her parents because at this point, what else is she going to do? Her mom acts surprised, but she wouldn't win any awards. Walt stays with them downstairs while she showers and changes, and she doesn't worry about what he might say or what they might say.

Later, in his motel room in the middle of the day, unclothed and spent, he says, "I didn't know if you'd want to do this."

"Why? I didn't seem all that into it last time?"

He smiles, and something inside her flowers.

"Because it makes it all harder."

"Doesn't make much of a difference anymore. We already did the damage I was trying to avoid."

A maid and her cart and their shadows clatter by the window.

"Why are you here, Walt? Really."

"I was out at Foothill Storage last week," he says.

"Yeah?" Her stomach muscles tense.

"They've had some break-ins."

"Bummer."

She feels like a suspect. A naked suspect with her body pressed up against her interrogator's.

He kisses her, tries to make eye contact, but she rolls onto her back.

"I talked to Mitch," he says.

"Good detective work. Talk to the owner."

He flips onto his stomach and searches her face, trying to figure something out, and she knows if she lets him do it for long enough, he will. She puts a pillow over her face.

"Vic?" His voice is muffled.

"I don't want to talk about it." She gets a mouthful of starched motel pillow.

"You still have it."

She takes the pillow off and throws it, not hard, just as an expression of defeat, and embarrassment.

"So?" she says.

Her face is burning up, and he's grinning at her like he thinks it's comical. Or far more insulting, cute.

"It means you're not sure."

"Maybe it just means I'm lazy and irresponsible."

"Except you're not."

"Fuck, Walt. Lay off."

"We can do this, Vic."

He takes his phone off the nightstand and navigates it like an old pro. "Look."

It's a picture of a miniature greenhouse next to what she thinks is the side window in his living room.

"What's that?"

"I told you I'd keep them alive. It's only part of them, but they're all alive."

"That's awesome," she says, but it doesn't deliver the way she wants it to because, honestly, it is kind of awesome.

He puts his phone back.

"So that's what? Some sort of symbol that neatly wraps up our perfect love story?"

He takes her hand, interlaces their fingers.

"Vic, it's messy, and it's flawed, and we have a lot of work ahead of us, but it's still a love story."


End file.
